Huge gamble because Bleymeier brings a lot of BAGGAGE from his last gig at Boise State.

San Jose State does need someone like Bleymeier who can twist a few arms with local tech firms to raise money. He did at Boise with both HP and Micron Technologies. HP in particular was a big corporate sponsor/donor/ticket buyer.

Time will tell whether this will be a good hire or not.

Spartan 68

This is great news for Sparta to get to the next level. Gene had some 45 violations, most were minor compared to Ohio State and USC violations.
He had the Broncos athletic dept. at the highest APRs of all WAC members!
That says he is serious about academics.

Won’t be surprised if Bleymaier taps into HP first for money before reaching out to other tech firms in the valley, given his connections with HP from his days in Boise.

San Jose State is a tough sell in the valley. Top execs from Silicon Valley firms tend to have ties to Stanford, Harvard, MIT, etc. Even Cal has trouble tapping into that pool.

babigos

Love this hire! Finally, an AD I can truly support!

drlil

are you all on drugs, what do think bleymaier can do that Bowen could not????? we had the best candidate…. the 2IC Tuite!!!!
what do we need another old white football man for?????? you are all stupid if you think anyone can come here and revive sjsu football better than bowen could!!!!

Tom Hood

San Jose State has more Alumni working in Silicon Valley Companies then CAL and Stanford Combined. This may be a blessing for SJSU.

OldBronco

Congrats to Gene. He is a great hire for SJSU and even the haters will come around when they see how he operates.

Mostwanted

Man this is getting really interesting and feeling a little awkward after saying some things out of paranoia for all things BSU. Personally I’m not one for gambling but I think GB deserves a second chance. It’s amazing he spent 30 yrs at bsu, that shows an awful lot of loyalty. Here’s hoping he will have the same amount of loyalty to SJSU and sticks around long enough to build this program up to where it can and should be.

Hey GB,

Congrats and welcome aboard.

San Ramon Spartan

drlil, he can win and raise lots of money. Bowen struggled with both of those, which is most likely why he knew his days were numbered at SJSU. Its rumored by many close to President Qayoumi, that he wanted his own “guy” running the athletic department from the start.

ccrider55

Micron Technology is Idaho based. Isn’t HP in Palo Alto?

milo

Most Sili Valley exec types don’t give a rat’s ass about sports, let alone college sports. They’re interested in making $$$, not giving it away.

Also it’s a known “secret” that the tech sector and Sili Valley are notoriously cheap in regards to charitable donations, charity and corporate giving.

Sure some of it’s the high cost of living but the neo-libertarian “let them eat cake” think is a key component that macho self-styled Darwinian geekdom operates on.

OT

@ccrider55:

HP’s LaserJet and DeskJet Printer division has been based at Boise from inception.

sjsbuff

Don’t look for $$$ from HP anytime soon – cutting 27,000 jobs is not a successful recipe for college athletic panhandling these days.

As to GB, it’s with mixed emotions that I welcome him aboard. Boise State has become a truly loathsome outfit for not only SJSU fans, but many other teams (and their fans) around the country. Yeah, they’re successful, blah, blah, blah. But any class they may have left in the tank is pretty much lost on this Spartan fan. Good riddance to BSU and welcome to their former athletic “boss”…

Atoodope

wow they just landed a steal. If you treat him right you will reap the benefits. Trust

OT

@sjsbuff:

“Nice guys” do not survive in the entertainment industry when millions of dollars are on the line.

Bleymaier, like most athletic directors, rubbed some people the wrong way during his stint in Boise because he would not have been able to do his job successfully if he didn’t.

OT

@milo:

Most Cal grads are notorious penny pinchers (because they were smart enough to attend Cal to begin with,) not just those working at tech firms in the valley.

Remember that Cal fans have one of the worst reputations in the PAC for not traveling well. Cal fans are daytrippers. Sending Cal to either the Sun Bowl or New Mexico Bowl is a sure recipe for the PAC 12 to lose money.

harold

This is why the corruption in college athletics is increasing at an awesome pace. This guy gets fired at Boise State for breaking dozens of rules — fired! not by some ivory-tower Ivy League school but BOISE STATE — and the only sound you hear is San Jose State fans bragging about how much money he’ll bring in. Hey, why don’t you hired Dave Bliss to run your basketball program, too?

ccrider55

OT:

Hope the HP employees in Boise are still there, not overseas. Corvallis HP campus had near 10000 an the late ’90s and is down to under 2000 now, and using only one or two of their ten buildings. Not sure HP is where you look for large discretionary donations.

CoachM

Wow!

I did not see this one coming. But I think it could be a great hire for SJSU. I have to be honest I do not know much about the man. I did know that he has been at BSU for a very long time. Thirty years is a pretty good accomplishment considering BSU’s meteoric rise into one of the top programs in college football.

Honestly, I have many more questions than answers. But it seems he will “know” what he’s doing as he’s done it before. I know BSU has been caught breaking some NCAA rules in the last couple of years. But, from what I understand it was mostly minor stuff. But, it did involve more than one athletic team on the BSU campus. Yet he (the AD) was punished as he lost his job over it. But outside of that, I beleive BSU has run mostly a clean department.

I do not equate BSU’s latest transgressions anywhere near the level of what has happened at Fresno State in the not-so-distant past.

I dont know of any athletic director in history, that has had a better track record of hiring really good football coaches. Namely Peterson, Hawkins, and Koetter. Currently, the Spartans are not in need of hiring a new head football coach. But, eventually that will be the case. But more likely SJSU will be looking for a new Men’s basketball coach, before that point.

I only am familiar with one BSU hoops coach (ever). And that is the guy they have now. I cant remember his name, but he seems to be a pretty good coach. He was a good long time assistant at Gonzaga.

So, It seems GB knows what he is doing.

Obviously there is more money here in the Valley and the SF bay area compared to Boise. But it is a completely different dynamic (here). For the most part, BSU is the only show in town. and is the beloved sports gem of Idaho.

I believe the sports culture at SJSU will change dramatically over the next few years (see MWC affiliation). But, lets be honest. We will almost always be #3 when it comes to Bay Area University College Athletics. I think this will be a challenge for anyone coming in.

The bay area community is just not willing to embrace SJSU athletics. Heck, when I attended SJSU back in the early 90’s most of the SJSU Students wanted nothing to do with the sports teams. I can see this paradigm has ced under Bowen and Tomey’s tenure.

I’m not exactly sure why people are so reluctant to embrace Spartan Athletics, but this Will change as the Hi-Visibility sports start winning alot more games.

Personally, I believe the athleitcs program as a whole is on the rise. And this hire is a great way to sustain and catapult our program to levels never experienced before.

SF

Excellent decision. SJSU needs someone with experience and to bring some stability to this position.
The folks in this corner will toast this hiring decision.
Go STATE!

SF

“Also it’s a known “secret” that the tech sector and Sili Valley are notoriously cheap in regards to charitable donations, charity and corporate giving”.

Cannot argue with that statement.

Milo makes a valid point here.
This is the dirty little secret of Silicon Valley.
This is a challenge faced by many non-profits in the area, not just College athletics.

OT

@Harold:

Like it or not, any university in the U.S. that runs a Division I football program is in the ENTERTAINMENT industry.

By definition, the entertainment industry is shallow and amoral, with money being the only thing that matters.

—

Most college presidents and ADs tend to be lousy entertainment executives, preferring to make ultra-conservative decisions that allow the likes of the bowl system and big media conglomerates (i.e. Disney/ESPN, NewsCorp/FOX) to clean their clocks at the “poker” table.

They play with too much fear: i.e. afraid of being ignored by ESPN SportsCenter, afraid of the economy going bad if contract terms were short, getting pushed around by agent of head coaches, etc.